


I Was a Fool to Wander and A-Stray (Straight is the Gate and Narrow the Way)

by citizenjess (givehimonemore)



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Communication Was Never Their Family's Forte, Frigga's Garden, Half-Sibling Incest, I Saw The Light, Loki No Don't Take the Tesseract, M/M, New Asgard equals Norway, Obligatory Star Wars Reference aka Thor Doesn't Understand Midgardian Pop Culture, Scars and Secrets, Soft Infinity War AU, Thor's Barbie Doll Hair, You're Missing an Eye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 22:38:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14820236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givehimonemore/pseuds/citizenjess
Summary: "The small cluster of Asgardian survivors travel to Norway without further incident." Their story isn't over yet, however.





	I Was a Fool to Wander and A-Stray (Straight is the Gate and Narrow the Way)

**Author's Note:**

> My file name for this story is "soft Infinity War AU." It is a bit of a dumping ground for ideas I had that didn't quite fit together at first, but once they did, everything else sort of just fell into place. Title is lyrics from the Hank Williams song, "I Saw the Light."

1.

The small cluster of Asgardian survivors travel to Norway without further incident. There are children and even a couple of adults who have nightmares while on the ship, flashes of a fiery Hel-spawned demon gutting their home planet, turning it to rubble, all too frequent. Thor does what he can, to assure, to understand, to empathize, as do his other newfound friends from Sakaar, as well as Banner and even Loki, in his own way, but the fledgling King is quick to learn that the difficult parts of ruling do not stop just because he finally manages to usurp his power-crazed sister from his late father’s throne. 

Loki sticks around, which Thor knows is not a guarantee. He tries hard not to push or cling, anything that might make his brother flee anew, and is rewarded not only with Loki’s company, but also his sorcery skills, which he spends several months using to build new foundations and structures - not nearly as much gold as before, notably - for New Asgard, as the planet’s refugees had quickly taken to calling it. Thor, who has largely seen Loki wielding his magic only for tricks, or worse, finds himself enchanted by watching his brother create things from wisps of air and energy; and in spite of Loki’s seemingly natural penchant for chaos, on a whole, the settlement is a very peaceful place.

A particularly fine afternoon finds Thor on a solitary walk, something he has begun taking more of lately. Two years of traveling the galaxy to search for the Infinity Stones and to figure out who he truly was had instilled some nomadic tendencies in him. He grew restless more easily, now (he would be lying to say that nightmares about the effects of Ragnarok did not affect him, too), though unlike in his youth, he usually managed not to let it grow out of hand into senseless bloodlust or such. He does not expect to run into anyone, least of all Loki, and certainly not in the middle of a lush garden full of summer flora that Thor does not believe existed a week ago.

“It’s nice,” he comments by way of greeting. Loki nods at him, but appears somewhat preoccupied. Thor does not take offense, and Loki does not seem to mind that he stays and looks around. “There are several of mother’s favorites here, yes?” he queries, and Loki nods. Grinning suddenly, Thor adds: “All it’s missing is that giant gaudy statue of you, brother.”

Loki does not match his smile, however. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” Thor says, once more surprised. “It was just kind of hard to miss.”

Loki nods. “It’s fine.” He pauses, as if weighing whether he should continue justifying his reaction. “The one of mother in her favorite alcove was a bit more subtle.” 

All at once, Thor feels terrible for what he has said. “Loki,” he begins, and crosses the circular path shortly, until they are standing toe-to-toe. “Forgive me. I was insensitive. I refused you an outlet to grieve when it happened; and then I thought you dead, and … I’m so sorry.”

Loki looks pensive. It is an odd look for him. “She was your mother, too,” he says quietly, but does not shy away from Thor when he tugs him close. Their foreheads touch, and Thor can see and hear intimately now how difficult it is for Loki to maintain his composure. He lets out a slow, shaky breath, and when his eyes flutter shut, hot tears finally slide down his face. 

“Brother,” Thor says, and moves to hold him. “She loved you so,” he whispered, running slow, soothing hands over Loki’s back. “She never stopped. Father should have listened to her more. Perhaps things could have been different if he had allowed her compassion to rub off on him.” 

Loki stills a little. “I missed the funeral,” he notes, and Thor is stabbed anew with another surge of heartache and self-loathing. “I thought the statue would let me still honor her.” 

“I’m sure it was perfect,” Thor says. He squeezes Loki’s arms warmly. “Why don’t you make another one right here,” he suggests, gesturing briefly. 

Loki nods. He turns away and neither of them speak for several minutes; rather, Thor watches his brother begin to conjure and finesse a new statue in their beloved mother’s image. It’s made of local rock, this one, not gold, but Frigga’s warm, smiling face is joyful in any medium. Only a skilled artist could turn cold, granite-colored stone into something so soft-looking, Thor thinks, admiring the way even minute details like the folds of the statue’s robes appear to be actual fabric.

Finally, Loki turns to Thor. “Well?” he queries. The fingers of one hand pick at the palm of the other, a nervous habit Frigga shared. It makes Thor smile. 

Impulsively, he hugs Loki again. “It’s perfect,” he says sincerely, and his own remaining eye is cloudy with tears now, too. “Absolutely perfect.”

2\. 

It seems important to hone the group’s collective fighting abilities, once Hela’s treachery has come to pass. It is not as though the Einherjar are there to protect them anymore, and Thor is not the only one who cannot help but feel like he is waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. There are yet Infinity Stones out there, after all.

Naturally, Brunnhilde, Korg, Miek, and Banner, as the Hulk, as well as some of the other fighters from their stint on Sakaar, are eager to help train the Asgardians in defensive measures. Group practices become commonplace. Thor helps as well, of course, though the specialized nature of his own newfound lightning powers are such that he often hones them on his own.

Surprisingly enough, it is Loki with whom he ends up spending most of his shared training time. Growing up, it had always easy enough to presume that each prince’s respective strengths were contrasted by a near-complete deficit in other areas, but in truth, Loki could hold his own increasingly well in combat with his favored knives, just as Thor had always had at least some basic elemental control over the weather to combine with his brute strength. 

Still, training together is often accidental. They do not regularly spar, nor does Loki oversee Thor’s attempts to conjure things from thin air. However, Thor notices the times that Loki is most likely to come around are those in which Thor himself is working to finesse his lightning conjuring and controlling abilities. On one such evening, he does not even notice Loki automatically, so drawn is he into an elegant series of poses and strikes that appear to be a dance more than actual fighting. When he does at last spot his brother, it is not difficult to ascertain Loki’s pleasure in observing him. “It’s brilliant,” he says softly, and it is one of the most sincere things to ever pass through his lips.

Thor draws close. He is still sparking somewhat, his eye and fingers alight with the bright blue energy that has become his personal calling card. “Careful,” Thor warns. “I’m still not perfect at manipulating it yet.”

Loki shivers at the proximity, but does not move away. “So much power,” he murmurs, and chances placing a hand on one of Thor’s shoulder pads. Thor watches him curiously, and then shakes his head when a stray spark appears to make contact with Loki’s skin. “Ah!” he yelps, but he is smiling now. 

“Fool,” Thor says, mostly teasingly. He cradles Loki’s hand and peers closely at it, but does not see any errant marks. “You’re going to singe off your hair until it must be shorn like mine,” he tells his brother, and Loki laughs.

“Perish the thought.” He pauses for a moment, and then places one hand flat against Thor’s chest. He’s grinning now, quite wickedly so, and it is not difficult to ascertain his arousal. “Do it again,” he murmurs, and Thor rolls his eyes affectionately, and then does as he has been bidden.

3\. 

They lie with one another often. It is not a particularly well-kept secret, but few seem to mind their need for intimacy after so much lost time spent apart and at war with one another. While such meetings do not always culminate in sex, it is rarely far from their minds. 

On this night, they reside next to one another in the haze of coital aftermath, the light low and the atmosphere quiet. Thor closes his eye when he feels Loki card a hand through his stocky hair. He hums a little to show his pleasure, and then stops, curiously, when he feels Loki’s fingers more purposefully moving through the short strands. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Ssshh,” is all Loki says in reply. “Keep still.”

Thor does as he is bidden. At first, it simply feels like Loki is massaging his head, but then it begins to itch and tickle, seemingly of its own accord. It is not until he feels the first long strand brush against his nose that he realizes what accounted for Loki’s concentration. “Oh,” he says, and watches fascinatedly as his recently-hacked locks grow, soon extending past his shoulders in sun-kissed waves, fit for a King, nay, a God. “Brother, thank you,” he says gratefully. He had gotten used to the short shorn style, but it was nothing compared to his natural millennium’s worth of growth. 

Loki is yet fiddling, however. “I’m not done yet,” he says. Reaching across Thor’s face, he gingerly removes the patch covering his brother’s empty eye socket, perhaps his most gruesome trophy from his battle with Hela. Once more, a hand passes over his face, and in short order, there is newfound feeling where once there had only been deadened nerves; then, as if it had never been gone in the first place, he can suddenly see with both eyes again.

Finished at last, Loki places his hand along Thor’s cheek. In kind, Thor turns his head enough to press a kiss to his brother’s open palm. 

4.

Not all of their time spent in one another’s company is pleasant, alas. The close proximity yet yields spats, both petty and otherwise. 

Once, during a rare bout of physical prowess betwixt them, Thor’s sword nicks a side seam on Loki’s costume. The tear could be repaired, but caught up in removing his top for the time being, Loki accidentally lets his guard down. Namely, the glamour he usually tosses over himself when intentionally baring himself before his brother had not been needed beneath his clothing up to now, and in his haste, Loki forgets to slide it back on like a second skin before Thor sees his bare, unaltered chest; before he sees … that.

“Loki.” Thor’s face is aghast, his eyes drawn naturally to the large, rounded scarred over wound sitting just underneath his brother’s rib cage. It doesn’t even account for the criss-crossed scars on his back, or marks from any number of things Thanos’ dark magic has inflicted upon him; things he had promised to inflict upon him again tenfold, and more, due to Loki’s treachery and subsequent escape from his control. Alas, Thanos’ magical handprint still had Loki firmly in its grasp. It was something Loki thought about every time he remembered that the Tesseract, which Thor and everyone else yet assume has been destroyed along with the rest of Odin’s socked away treasures with the fall of Asgard, still exists, currently socked away in a pocket dimension of his own design. 

Covertly, Loki re-glamours the rest of him, save for the remnants of the impaling wound that Thor has already seen. Instinctively, he groans at the anticipation of his brother’s reaction. It is not misplaced worry, though it fails to lessen Thor’s anger or confusion. 

“I don’t understand,” Thor finally settles on. “You let me malign you about faking your own death. You let everyone continue to think you a villain. Why?”

Loki just shrugs noncommittally.

Thor’s eyes flash with frustration. There is plenty more he does not know about Loki’s time in exile, he senses, and knowing Loki would rather throw himself into the vast bleakness of space again than clue him in hurts. “I want you here, brother,” he manages to get out, and Loki can sense that Thor is about to take his leave of this interaction fairly soon. “But I wish you didn’t feel the need to keep me in the dark. I wish …” He pauses. “I wish you would accept my love for you, Loki.” Then he is gone in a swirl of red fabric and newly-reforged lengthy blond locks, and Loki is left, as he has taken pains to ensure, alone.

5.

Thor does not see Loki for several days after that. Part of him waits to hear from Korg or Brunnhilde that he has taken off; it is difficult not to pry, or hunt him down, or pump people for information as to his whereabouts, but Thor manages, hoping that giving Loki the space he needs will keep him close when it counts.

And then, Thor gets the biggest surprise of all, in the form of soft knocking on his private chamber doors in the late hours of the night. He can sense who it is, and also why he hesitates to let himself in, per their usual protocol. Trying not to appear too eager, he schools his face and crosses the room to greet his visitor.

Loki looks beautiful in the dim lighting, though there is a sadness to his expression that Thor hates to see. “Come in,” he says, and Loki follows him, and then flicks his fingers in an almost idle gesture that Thor knows actually locks his doors. It is mere instinct, he is sure, but it makes him smile inwardly. “I am glad to see you,” he says sincerely.

Loki shakes his head ruefully. “I don’t understand why.” In another light, it could be seen as him fishing for praise, something he has never been shy about doing before, but both he and begrudgingly even Thor can recognize that this is something different. For once, the sentiment, perhaps Loki’s worst enemy, save for Thanos and himself, of course, is real.

Thor tentatively reaches out, pleased when it does not cause Loki to immediately pull away. “I would do anything for you. You are my brother, the other half of my very soul. I know you do not need me, Loki, but I wish very much you could see that I need you. I know ... “ He takes a breath before continuing. “I know there are things I am yet to learn about your life, but I am here when you decide I am worthy of your secrets. Anything you need. Any,” he tries for the right word, “any monsters left to slay, I will bloody my hands for you, you need only but say the word.”

Loki tries to appear impassive, but in truth, he anticipated confrontation that would then lead to harsh, punishing fucking, followed by harsh, punishing cuddling. He did not think Thor would double down on his overt interest in Loki staying in New Asgard with him. “There might yet be some rather large monsters to slay,” he warns, and overrides his typical instinct to flee when Thor takes him in his arms; and then again, when he finds himself clinging to his brother in return. 

He is tall enough for Thor to bury his face in the crook of Loki’s neck, a movement succeeded by Thor planting small, soft kisses up and down the lengthy, elegant column of his throat, and also along the barest hint of collarbone that peeks out from his top. “We will slay them together,” Thor promises in heated tones. “And then,” another kiss, this one directly to Loki’s Adam’s apple, “I will kiss every one of your scars, map your body with my mouth. I will memorize every landmark and feature, every curve.” He straightens anew, and stares directly into Loki’s eyes. “We will make each other whole again, brother.” Reaching out, he grips softly at Loki’s chin. “Let me in, Loki,” he begs. “Please, let me in.”

Loki closes his eyes, and reopens them with the addition of shiny, unshed tears. Thor, beautiful, naive, perfect Thor, who wants him, of all people, is still there, his thumb lightly caressing Loki’s jaw line. “I will try,” he promises, and for once, he’s pretty sure he means it. 

Thor’s hand dips to the familiar spot on the back of Loki’s neck, a move that never fails to heighten the intimacy between them. “There is a fictional being from space who says, “Do not try, only do,” or something like that. Steve Rogers told me about him - the man spider made him watch nine or ten different movies about him.”

It is Loki’s turn to shake his head affectionately. “Fool,” he says to Thor. “I do not deserve you, truly,” he adds, and it is probably the most honest thing he has ever admitted out loud, to anyone. “But, well,” Loki says, “far be it for me to question the King of New Asgard.”

“Your King thanks you for your censure,” Thor quips; and then Loki is in his arms, coursing through his veins, imprinting on his soul in waves of pure, unblemished bliss, and there is nothing much left to say after that.


End file.
